Napoli in celebration, victory over Cagliari gives fourth Scudetto
On the last day, an uncertain championship comes to a close, with a high attendance of over 90% of the stadiums, with the success of Aurelio De Laurentiis' club
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3' min read
On the night of 23 May, in the last leg of the championship, Napoli pulled away from Inter and sewed the Scudetto on their shirts for the fourth time in their 100-year history (the club was founded in 1926). A goal by the new Neapolitan hero Scott Mc Tominay unblocked the game at the Maradona, after the Nerazzurri had taken the lead in Como, temporarily overtaking Napoli in first place. In the second half, Romelu Lukaku on the restart sealed the deal (as Inter scored the second goal in Como). In the end, the identical 2-0 scoreline of Napoli-Cagliari and Como-Inter leaves Aurelio De Laurentiis' club with a hefty point lead in the standings.
The New York Times last 19 May called Serie A the 'most enraging, engaging and entertaining league' in the Old Continent. The 'most enraging, engaging and entertaining league' of the Old Continent. The 2024/25 tournament with Napoli and Inter conceding unexpected chances to their opponents, match points almost all wasted, is undoubtedly a unicum in the panorama of the major European football leagues, in which the title was awarded far in advance.
Serie A, too, has had a single dominator in recent years, but at the top of Italian football in the last five years there have been four different clubs alternating, compared to the three of the Spanish La Liga and the two of the Premier, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. An uncertainty that also marked until the last day the fight for salvation and that for qualification for European competitions, especially the Champions League. With regard to which, it is worth noting the renewed competitiveness of Italian teams in recent seasons, with Inter reaching two Champions League finals in three years (Milan the semi-final), Atalanta winning the Europa League, and Roma (won) and Fiorentina in the Conference League (unfortunately lost). The so-called national 'competitive balance' is the result of constant improvement of Italian clubs, after the crisis caused by the pandemic, and not of a lowering of the level of sporting competition.
Of course, structural problems remain to be tackled, from excessive indebtedness (here too, however, at least for the top clubs, the trend is one of erosion of the debt mass), to the strategies to be strengthened for the definitive international relaunch of Serie A brands, to the atavistic infrastructure issue.
The 2024/25 championship was characterised by an overwhelming return of spectators to the stands, with more than 90 per cent filling the stands (a percentage that had stood at 70 per cent for Serie A until recently).
